It’s only the beginning of December, but there have already been 55 water main breaks so far in 2018.

With more inevitably on their way as winter continues, Cornwall is finding itself well above average compared to past years when it comes to breaks.

“On average we have about 52 breaks per year. So we are already above that average and we are likely to finish off the year around 60 beaks,” said John St. Marseille, general manager of infrastructure. “This number is high and apart from the cost of repairing the water main breaks themselves, there are soft costs associated with that, such as water lost to residents.”

Fixing these breaks is not inexpensive, with the cost of repairing a break being between three-times and 10-times higher than the expense of doing pipe relining to prevent such breaks. At the moment, there are 67 kilometres of water mains that require relining, repairs or replacing and the budget only expects to do two kilometers of that work in 2019. This backlog has been caused by “underspending” from the city, said St. Marseille, and fixing it will take time even if council were to throw money at the problem now.

Handout/Cornwall Standard-Freeholder/Postmedia NetworkSlide from the draft 2019 Cornwall water and wastewater budget presentation showing watermain breaks and those areas in need of repair and/or replacement.Handout Not For ResaleSupplied

“So we are not making much of a dent in that,” said St. Marseille. “There’s a lot of need out there, and we understand that. But even if we wrote a $38-million cheque today, we wouldn’t be able to do all that work.”

St. Marseille’s comment speaks to the logistics, being that even if there were a bottomless pot of money, there’s only so much construction work that can be reasonably accommodated in a single season.

That there are expected to be so many breaks this year raised eyebrows at a special meeting of council held Thursday where the administration presented the draft water and wastewater budget for 2019. Coun. Dean Hollingsworth wondered if this was a growing trend that could become a serious problem in the years to come.

St. Marseille and his staff members responded that it might be driven in part by climate change, explaining not only are parts of the water system ageing and already prone to corrosion, but that this is exacerbated by deeper than normal frost penetration during the winter or dryer than normal summers.

“In very dry summers that we had this year, the soil can desiccate, which causes it to move away from the pipes which allow for moving and shaking,” explained Bill De Witt, municipal works division manager.

Related

Another climate change related challenge for the water system is taste and odour issues, which can be caused by blue-green algae blooms which are becoming more common. These problems are not dangerous to human health, but are nonetheless a challenge and a nuisance for the city.